Die in your arms tonight
by MeredithvL
Summary: What is so valuable about life, that everybody feels the need to preserve it? As the survivors of the galactic war have time to celebrate that death didn't find them yet, one woman will have to learn the very meaning of being human. The story is post Mass Effect 3, including content from Citadel DLC. Rated M for adult themes.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own or have any rights to representation of Bioware, EA Games and any other mass media trademarks within this fiction. Characters belong to Bioware. All is represented within the context of private entertainment.

**The title:** Was inspired by/stolen from the song "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" by Cutting Crew. For some reason, I kept hearing that song in my head as I thought about this story, so there you go.

**The rating:** I decided to rate the story M to be on the safe side and have more freedom when I write, without thinking "would this be appropriate for a teen to read?". However, do expect adult themes on future chapters but not smut, because I don't think it will be necessary for the story, but also because I don't trust my ability to write well that kind of scenes.

**Notes:** Except for the prologue, the rest of the story will take place after the ending of Mass Effect 3. Everything that happened in all three games and every DLC will be unchanged, except for one little detail that is explained here in the prologue. What ending I chose for this story, and other important in-game decisions, should be clear in next chapters.

I'll post new chapters when I have the time to write them, I cannot promise any certain frequency.

Oh, for those of you that read my other stories, Shepard here is not Melody. Yay? Finally? Of course, that doesn't mean I'll abandon Melody, I'll keep updating her journey.

Also, keep in mind that I try my best, but English is not my first language.

* * *

Prologue

"Look at you. What makes you so damned special?", she asked, her voice loaded with anger and contempt, "Why you and not me?"

The shuttle bay of the Normandy was open. Two identical looking women were hanging from the external border, just outside the shielding of the ship. They were holding themselves with all their strength, because the spacecraft was flying over the Citadel and falling would have meant certain death.

"Hang on!" said a turian voice, the urgency apparent in his tone. It had to belong to Garrus Vakarian, the ugly scarred alien that had abandoned C-Sec to join the cult of Shepard.

Two figures ran toward the other woman, while the one who had spoken tried to climb back on the floor.

"We've got you!" said Kaidan Alenko, the second human Spectre. They both helped the other woman up. The other Shepard. The one that people called 'the real' Shepard, but that was nothing more than a mess of doubts and emotions.

She knew that she was better than that 'real' Shepard, but yet she failed to climb on her own. She looked directly at Maya Brooks for help. Or Hope Lilium. Or whatever the hell her name was. It didn't matter, because the former Cerberus agent turned her back on her. She was on her own, and she had failed. She lowered her head, while the other woman thanked her companions.

"What about her?" asked Vakarian in his dual-toned masculine voice, looking at the Shepard that he had referred to as 'the clone'. She was slipping and wouldn't resist much longer.

"Here, take my hand," said the 'real' Commander, who had moved to where she was and was extending an arm toward her. Her green eyes shone in the light of the shield produced by the Normandy.

"And then?" the 'clone' asked, looking directly at her intended rescuer.

"And then you live!" replied the other Shepard. She was frowning slightly, but her expression didn't seem to reveal anger or displeasure.

Live, she said. Live knowing forever that she had failed, that she wasn't going to be humanity's salvation as Lilium or Brooks or whatever her name was had promised. The 'real' Shepard could speak about life, because she hadn't be created to be spare parts.

"For what?" she asked, scoffing. She made no effort to hide her hatred.

The 'clone' opened her hands. However, she had taken a second too long to do it. She slid a little, but the other Shepard jumped forward and caught her arm. She tried to break free, to fall. Nevertheless the other woman was just as strong as her, and she was being helped up by her team.

The 'real' Shepard pushed her further inside the shuttle bay of the ship, and handcuffed her. She was aware of the fact that the other woman had risked her life to save hers, but damn if she understood why.

She was forced to sit on the floor. Major Alenko kept an eye on her, apparently in the event that she decided to suicide again. She thought that it was useless that he watched her. She had been defeated not only in taking Shepard's identity and the Normandy, but also in taking her own life. She no longer had the strength to attempt hurting herself at that moment.

Seconds later, she heard the 'real' Shepard discussing something with her crew. She didn't pay attention because she wasn't interested, until she heard the voice of Maya Brooks. The traitor was also handcuffed. The 'clone' wished to get up and punch Brooks or Lilium in the face, and then load a full clip on her chest. She tentatively looked at Alenko, to gauge if he was distracted enough to allow her to try doing that. He wasn't. He simply shook his head to her, and she lowered her gaze. Defeated again. She had to hear the exchange between the former Cerberus agent and the 'real' Shepard, unable to do anything but watch.

"Admit it, Commander," said Brooks at one point, leaning forward. "You'll miss me."

At that moment, Maya broke free from her handcuffs. She started running away before anyone could catch her. Calmly, the other Shepard just rose her gun and shot her on the back.

"Not at this range, I won't," the Commander remarked, as Brooks fell dead on the floor.

"Maintenance to the shuttle bay," requested the pilot of the Normandy, the man that went under the nickname of 'Joker' according to the profiles she had read about them.

The 'real' Shepard approached the woman looking exactly like her, and looked at her directly in her eyes.

"What will you do with me?" asked the 'clone', showing disdain in her tone. She was still sitting on the cold floor of the ship.

"You'll be taken to an Alliance high-security facility," explained the other Shepard.

"Why saving my life, but killing her?" she asked in turn, glancing at the corpse of the woman that she had thought as her only ally and associate.

"Those six months you took to learn how to be a human?" the 'real' Commander said. "You didn't get it right. You need more time to figure it out. She, on the other hand," she said pointing at Brooks' corpse with her pistol, "had all the time she needed, and still didn't get it. There was no hope for her."

Neither of them had much to add. The Commander walked away, leaving Alenko and Vakarian behind. She didn't move, didn't try to stand up, or didn't even blink when the Normandy docked. Minutes later, Alliance soldiers surrounded her.

"Is this the clone, Major?" asked one of the soldiers looking at Kaidan. "Her resemblance to the Commander is remarkable."

"Valerie," the 'clone' grumbled from the floor, staring at them. "If you won't call me 'Shepard' or 'Commander', at least have the decency of leaving me a first name. She doesn't have the monopoly on the name 'Valerie', does she?"


	2. Chapter 1: White walls

Chapter 1: White walls.

The broken Reaper stared at her with its empty eye. She stared back at it, silent and unimpressed, out the barred window. Almost four years ago, those gigantic machines had been the scourge of the galaxy. Now they were part of the landscape. All she had ever heard about the matter was that they were too expensive to move. A few had been dismantled for study or to be used as building material.

She was sitting on the top of a bunk bed, with her legs folded and her hands resting on her bare feet. She was wearing a white tank top and a pair of red sweatpants. Her short blonde hair was tousled, not that she cared. Sunlight came through the window into the small room with white walls, and bathed her athletic figure. It was the same light that the 'real' Shepard had known as a child, when she had to survive alone in the streets of Earth.

Valerie hadn't had the chance of seeing much of Earth's rebuilding. She had started her captivity in a high-security facility, but after two suicide attempts, the Alliance decided that she would be better off in a mental institution. The first one that they had sent her to had been hell. The war with the Reapers had ended only a month before, and the hospital was crowded. The only way to keep her alive had been to sedate her or restrain her. However, everything changed for the better as more people were discharged and she could be transferred to the place she was at that moment. She was receiving actual psychiatric treatment, for a start.

As the months had passed since the transfer, and she gave evidence that she no longer wanted to end her own life, she had been given more liberties. She was allowed to read, watch vids or see the news. That was how she had learned of the death of Commander Valerie Shepard, after months fighting for her life ever since she had been found covered in debris. She had never regained consciousness after the final battle. "If they'd had let me do it," she had commented to the woman watching the news next to her, "I'd be the corpse and they'd have their great hero alive." The woman hadn't said anything, she had just laughed, probably thinking that Valerie shared her level of insanity. She had just shrugged.

Just a few weeks later, the news had transmitted the return of the emblematic Normandy to Earth. Valerie had though of the brief time that she had spent on board of the ship. She had felt great for the short while that it lasted. Even the fight with the now dead Commander had been challenging and had made her feel alive. The memory had a bitter taste, however, because for the first time she had felt the dagger of betrayal puncturing between her ribs.

It took time for her to trust anybody again, but after the time she had spent in the institution, she could say that she trusted her psychiatrist, to a certain degree. Valerie was not longer angry at the Commander, at Hope Lilium or even at Cerberus. She had been convinced of giving life a try, but it was too short to spend it consumed by overwhelming hatred, and she had already lost the first three decades of it.

The door opened, bringing her mind to the present time and her room with the barred window. She glanced to see who had entered. It was Theresa, the woman with long brown hair that slept on the bed below hers. Valerie really disliked her and never made any effort to hide it, but that didn't stop the other woman from wanting to get into her pants.

"What are you up to?" asked Theresa approaching the bed and leaning her arms on it, near the spot where Valerie was sitting.

"Until now, contemplating silence," replied Valerie shifting her gaze at the window again. "You should give it a try."

"You're mean!" said Theresa chuckling. She sat at her own bed, below the blonde woman. "But I like you nevertheless."

"You're free to stop liking me anytime you want." The tone that she employed sounded more tired than upset.

"I can't, you're the most beautiful woman on Earth," Theresa made a pause, and added, "Oh, and doctor Grant wants to see you."

Valerie slipped from the bed and dropped herself to the floor.

"You should have told me that when you came in," she said as she was putting her shoes on, "instead of your usual babbling."

"I'm telling you now!" protested Theresa, laughing softly while she was laying down on her bed.

Valerie left the room and closed the door behind her, before the other woman could say anything else. She walked down the corridors, ignoring the other inpatients that crossed her path. She thought that one of them was screaming something at her, probably the Bible crazy woman. Yielding at her insistence, she had read that Bible book two years ago. It had been pure nonsense to her. No wonder that the hospital staff wouldn't let that woman go home with her family, although she was one of the few patients that actually received visitors.

Valerie reached doctor Juliet Grant's office, and softly knocked on the door. It was a white door with no circuits attached to it or anything else to make it stand apart, other than the name of the doctor written on a small sign at eye's height.

"It's open," came a female voice from inside.

The patient opened the door, and stepped into the office. It was a small room with a desk, three chairs, two bookcases, an armchair and a couch placed below a large barred window. The walls were white, as every other wall inside the institution.

"You wanted to see me?" asked Valerie standing near the door.

"Yes, please come in," said the doctor. She was a woman probably in her late forties, wearing a brown dress under her open white coat. She held her black hair in a neat bun at the back of her head. She was elegant and always seemed to care about her appearance, although some wrinkles were starting to show in the corner of her eyes. The doctor was sitting on the armchair, and had her crutch resting on the back. Juliet Grant had been severely injured during the war, but after multiple surgeries, she had been left with only a minor limp. When Valerie had asked the doctor why didn't she treat it, she had replied that she was tired of medical procedures and just wanted to go on with her life.

The blonde woman closed the door behind her, and sat on the couch in front of the doctor. There was nothing feminine about her position, with her legs sprawled and her back ungracefully leaning on the back of the sofa. The doctor smiled, but the reason for that smile was beyond Valerie's comprehension.

"You made a lot of progress here," said the doctor leaning forward just a little bit on her seat, "and I think that you're ready to leave, Valerie."

"Leave?" she asked, sounding confused. "Leave where?"

"Outside, to see the world," replied Grant with an ample gesture of her arm. "To forge your own destiny."

"My own destiny," Valerie repeated, scoffing.

"There's no reason for you to remain here," insisted the doctor, with a soft tone. "You are no longer a threat to yourself or others. You aren't insane and had never been. The Alliance understands that your circumstances are special. They want you to take a new last name, and hide your origin from the general public. In exchange they will provide you with a lifelong pension. You can return here for regular counseling, as an outpatient."

"You think I need it?" asked the blonde woman narrowing her eyes a bit.

"Life can be confusing," replied the doctor gesturing with her hands, "and you didn't have a childhood or adolescence to figure it out. The counseling is not mandatory, though. Take it just as an offer, to make your life easier."

Valerie lowered her head and kept silent for a moment. Finally, she looked directly at doctor Grant.

"How exactly will I hide my origin?" she asked. "I look exactly like the Commander. Just being out there in the streets will tell people whatever they want to know about me."

She had found over the time that she had spent there, that calling the 'real' Shepard 'the Commander' didn't hurt. After all, she wasn't a Commander herself, given the fact that she had never really joined the Alliance or was promoted in its ranks.

"The Alliance has taken care of that," explained the doctor. "They've altered the records of Commander Shepard's face. Only people who knew her when she was alive will be able to tell that you look just like her. Everybody else will find you very similar."

"People had seen video footage of her," insisted Valerie gesturing with her hands. "You think they won't remember?"

"They've also seen the broadcast of her funeral," said the doctor softly. "It's been years since the war ended. They won't think at first glance that you are her. It would help, of course, if you didn't insist on keeping her exact same haircut."

"It's a comfortable haircut!" protested the patient.

"I know, but you need to assume your own identity," Grant said patiently. "We went over this, Valerie."

"I have my own identity, doctor," she said crossing her legs and arms at the same time. "In fact, I'm quite used at looking at myself in the mirror. I don't believe I'm committing any crime in keeping my hair the way I like it."

"It was just a friendly suggestion," said the doctor moving on her chair, "Nobody has prevented you from doing it so far."

Valerie didn't reply right away, and an uncomfortable silence set between the two women.

"If you agree, you can leave the hospital next week, after an interview with an Alliance committee," said Juliet Grant after a while. "Is there anything else you want to know?"

"They want me to take a new last name, huh?" Valerie asked. "What's wrong with 'Smith'?"

Smith was the last name that she had been given by the Alliance when she was admitted in the hospital, to avoid suspicion from the staff.

"Nothing," replied the doctor. "The only condition is that you don't try to use Shepard's last name. You can keep the name Smith if you like it."

"Yeah, Valerie Smith will do," she said nodding. After a brief pause she added, "I don't think I have any other questions right now."

"Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?" Grant offered gently.

"Nope," replied Valerie getting up from the couch. "I'd like to go back to my room."

"Of course," said the doctor nodding and gesturing to the door with her hand.

She left Grant's office, but she didn't walk directly to her room as she had said she would. Probably that annoying Theresa would still be there, and the last thing Valerie wanted was to put up with her foolishness and her misguided attempts to seduce her.

She went to the common room instead, and grabbed a datapad that contained an assorted collection of books from a shelf. She couldn't concentrate to read, though. Her mind kept going back to doctor Grant's words, especially when she had said that she could forge her own destiny. What destiny? She could have had a great destiny, dying instead of Commander Shepard. She had wronged the woman with her same DNA, only because she had been stupid enough to believe the treacherous words of Hope Lilium, or whatever her name had been. Valerie didn't make excuses for herself, however, neither she felt overwhelmed by guilt. She had acted badly, now she understood that, but she knew that she had been deceived. She was glad that she hadn't caused real damage to the Commander, her team or her ship. Nevertheless she resented that the Alliance didn't let her take the Commander's place during the final battle, as Valerie requested multiple times. There was a good chance that she wouldn't survive it, and they knew it. Dying instead of her would have been a good way to thank her for the second chance. No words of apology would have needed, the Commander would have understood. Nobody needed to ever know that she had existed, they could have simply said that the Commander survived her injuries in the hospital, and she'd still be a hero. A breathing one. Instead of that, the Alliance doomed the 'real' Shepard, and condemned her to have a menial life after the biggest war of all times.

Valerie stood up and put away the datapad. She stared out the window, from that common room with white walls in a mental institution. The corpse of the dead Reaper stared back at her, silent and unimpressed.


	3. Chapter 2: Boys don't cry

Chapter 2: Boys don't cry

Krogan blood had a distinctive smell, one that the second human Spectre Kaidan Alenko had learned to recognize. Every time, when the combat with the bulky aliens was over, all he wanted to do afterward was to take a bath. He wanted to wash away the stench and change into a clean uniform.

Because of his rank, he could have chosen not to fight himself, instead coordinating the action from somewhere else. Still, he wanted to be on the battlefield, to be an example for other soldiers and also to not put his biotic abilities to waste.

After the combat the wounded were transported to Alliance hospitals and health centers. A preliminary battlefield report informed him that there had been no casualties on their side this time. He smiled. The krogan forces on Earth were dwindling, after about three and a half years of conflict.

Kaidan sank on the seat in the shuttle that would transport him back to Vancouver. When the vehicle took off, he knew that he wouldn't get much conversation from the other soldiers inside. For them, he was an authority and a symbol. They treated him as if he was unapproachable, although he kept a friendly attitude toward them. He had long ago stopped trying to fight the perception that young soldiers had about him. He didn't know if they were intimidated because of his rank in the Alliance, his Spectre status, or the fact that he had been part of Shepard's crew.

Knowing that he would have some time off until he reached the new Alliance headquarters, he allowed his thoughts to drift. His mind went back to the final moments of the war against the Reapers. The final words that he and Shepard had exchanged, their time to say goodbye. He had really hoped, deep inside, to see her again. That had been the reason why when they crashed on a strange jungle planet, and the crew decided to do a memorial for their fallen while the Normandy was being repaired, Kaidan had refused to put a plaque with her name on the wall. He really thought that she, somehow, was alive on Earth, and it turned out that he had been right. She had been alive when they did the memorial, but in coma and unable to communicate. She had died during the time it took the Normandy to return to Earth, with the mass relays gone.

The Normandy had been given to him, considering that he was the Alliance officer with the highest rank alive to ever fly on the ship. Not that he could do much with it now. EDI had gone offline the same day the Crucible was fired. Further analysis revealed that all of her files and processes had been deleted, for unknown reasons. Interstellar travel was now prohibitive until the scientists and technicians could figure out how to repair the mass relays.

The galaxy had become a very different place after the Reaper War. For a start, all of the allies that Commander Shepard had managed to get to help in the fight, were now stranded on humanity's homeworld, relaying on quantum entanglement communications to reach their planets. Hadn't been for the expertise the quarian had in growing dextro food anywhere, the dextro amino-acid aliens would have starved. The extranet, that had been based on mass relays comm buoys, was also gone, replaced on Earth by the old internet and on each planet by a local network.

The Alliance also had to deal with the mercenary bands like Eclipse or the Blue Suns. It seemed a good idea at the time to recruit them for the war efforts, but when it was over they only wanted to have their own profit.

Then, of course, there was the conflict with the krogan. It was almost a blessing that the mass relays weren't operational, because that meant that most krogan were confined on Tuchanka instead of throwing asteroids on Council worlds. Shortly after the Reapers had been defeated, the aliens realized that their genophage hadn't been cured, and they started their war against the Council. The salarians had officially blamed Padok Wiks' lack of skills in synthesizing the cure. They even offered another try for when the relays could be repaired, but the krogan had run out of patience. Other voices, however, rumored about sabotage. What most people agreed on was that if there had been a sabotage, Commander Shepard had no way of knowing it and that she had acted in good will.

Kaidan, who had known Shepard first hand, didn't know what to think. He had never spoken about the genophage attempted cure with her, but he had seen her kill Wrex on Virmire. He knew that she had never trusted the synthetics and therefore it wasn't hard to imagine why she had helped the quarians on Rannoch, even when it meant the extermination of the geth. However, he didn't know if she would have gone as far as to doom an entire organic species. Now it was too late to ask her. Everybody thought of her as the great hero, forgetting that once she had been nicknamed the Butcher of Torfan.

To be fair, not even he could say that he had understood Shepard completely. He had spent some glorious intimate moments with her, before the mission on Ilos and on several other occasions after defeating Sovereign on the Citadel. Then, she had died. Other people could believe that she had been only severely wounded, or even that she had spent two years undercover. Kaidan however had seen the Normandy explode, and the last escape pod empty except for the pilot.

He had mourned her, knowing that he had loved her but not sure if she had loved him back. Then, after two years, he had heard rumors that she was alive. He had seen her on Horizon and practically merged with her in a long hug. Still, he couldn't understand what was she doing with Cerberus. He had said words that he later came to regret. Of course, he had been right about Cerberus, but he didn't know all the circumstances that forced her to accept their help.

She had forgiven him, but he could never again be as close to her as he had wanted. She had accepted only his friendship. Kaidan heard that the times she had visited the Huerta Memorial, she had spent more time with a certain drell that with him.

After the Normandy had been given to him, after he had visited the grave of Valerie Shepard, he had done something that he wasn't proud of, but that he had needed to do in order to give himself some peace of mind. He had gone up to the cabin that used to be hers, and had read the messages in her private terminal. That man, Thane Krios, had called her 'siha' and said in no ambiguous words that he loved her. Had she loved him back? He could never know, and he would never be able to ask her. He gained nothing from speculating if with time she would have given him, Kaidan Alenko, a second chance.

He couldn't say that the life that he was living after the Normandy returned to Earth wasn't fulfilling professionally. There was a lot to do, and he was a man trusted by both the humanity and the Council. He was a respected General in the Alliance. He had become influential, although he wasn't used to it.

The shuttle landed on the Alliance headquarters in Vancouver. After a short debrief where he informed of their success, he went straight to the showers. He let the hot water soothe his muscles and his thoughts at the same time. The smell of krogan blood left his skin. It could as well be a smell he wouldn't need to feel often in the future, considering that all the krogan stranded on Earth were male and that with each mission fewer of them were left alive. With the genophage still in effect and the losses they had suffered from the Reapers, their numbers in general could only shrink.

When Kaidan finally reached his home, at night, he opened a beer and sat on one of his coaches, in front of the picture of the Normandy's crew. The picture had been taken during the party held in Shepard's apartment on the Citadel, after that incident with the clone and the actual shore leave they had, following that. There they all were, the survivors from the SR-1, from the suicide mission to the collector's base that Kaidan didn't participate in, and from everything else that happened while they were searching for allies around the entire galaxy. She was there, in the middle of the picture, calmly looking at her front. Just from seeing her face in that image it would have been impossible to guess her strength and her resolve.

"Cheers, Shepard," he said to the picture raising his beer, and he smiled. He would have liked to see her one more time, even if she couldn't reply to him. He regretted not being able to see her at the hospital when she was unconscious. He knew that she had visited him when he was in that state in Huerta Memorial, and he couldn't return the favor. That fact alone hurt more than the ongoing conflict with the krogan, the loss of the mass relays and the general state of disarray the galaxy was left in after the war.

When he finally went to sleep, he went alone, like he had for quite some time. Actually, the last time that he had slept with anyone beside him on the bed, had been when that short blonde haired hurricane still commanded the SSV Normandy SR-1. Missing her had become his normal state, to the point that he could almost laugh about it. Almost.


End file.
